Reads Infinite Jest once

>reads Infinite Jest once

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=eHpV08wI-bw
youtube.com/watch?v=wKrSYgirAhc
thequietus.com/articles/22171-father-john-misty-josh-tillman-pure-comedy-album-review
youtube.com/watch?v=nO89Wos0Hv0
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>reads Blood Meridian once

nobody cares about those albums or anything anyone has to say about them

>reads Animal Farm once

eh, i hate pure comedy so powerfully that it's borderline pathological, so in that sense i care about it.

it makes me angry just knowing that people like it. it's the only album in the world that does that for me

Fuck you. Cop is great

Seek help user, that's actually not healthy

i know, it's consuming. i swear im usually such a like and let like person when it comes to music too, idk what this album awoke in me. i also really liked his first two albums as FJM. maybe its the embarrassment of having an artist you like put out cover to cover pseudointellectual dreck the length of a feature film? I'm not sure.

This so much. People liking this rustles me so hard. It's as close to objectively terrible as you can get.

>reads Lolita once

Blood Meridian was written after Cop though.

fuck, that actually blows my mind.

Hey buddy.

[spoiler]I like Pure Comedy[/spoiler]

Its ironic that the intellectual elitism of anons like this is far more pretentious than the supposed "pretentiousness" they project onto the album.

These kids listened to a track or likely just read about a track on Sup Forums and got all defensive. "How dare an artist say anything remotely sweeping about society! Where does he get off!?", he shouts, misunderstanding the entire concept of perspective and self-expression.

The album is not FJM "telling it like it is". Its an inward look at his own perspective and life experiences; its not meant to be taken as an objective truth.

Butthurt Sup Forumstants that spend to much time validating their own opinions wont understand this.

is it supposed to be easy to transcribe infinite jest into music?
albums pure art

This "The Fact That" tier BTFO right here.

Nice 1, man

Um no, the music is just bad

damn you sure got him xd

t.16 yr old

>it's supposed to be bad, therefore it's good

i agree but it seems like the actual music is not that interesting and just a vehicle for his lyrics, which is why i personally dislike it

b-but he was just being ironically bad, therefore it's good.

>doesn't read anything

I can't imagine many people read it twice.

kek

youtube.com/watch?v=eHpV08wI-bw

he just put out this vid. thoughts?

...

awful lmao

> Macaulay Culkin
josh has gone full meme

Why does everyone keep bringing Infinite Jest into this? There's barely any similarities besides the authors of both being sort of anxious dorks obsessed with sex.

they both look at the themes of entertainment and what role it plays in society.

is he calling MaCauley a cuck or Kurt a cuck?

LOL

he also used pepe and aids skrillex in his pure comedy video
youtube.com/watch?v=wKrSYgirAhc

hes saying what Sup Forums says about both of them.

Only one does it well. guess which?

agree

>what is folk music

good
unlike pure comedy

epic btfo xD

well obviously IJ conveyed it better as it is a fucking 1000 page book (which I really, really enjoyed), but it's not fair to compare music and literature, as they are two completely separate mediums. FWIW i think the way FJM used PC to convey his feelings towards capitalism and entertainment wasn't as ham-fisted as people on this board are making out.

This is so fucking stupid that I actually kind of enjoy it.

not as strong as honeybear

What's so bad about Pure Comedy? No one ITT has articulated any reasons why they think it's bad.

I'd personally rate it around a 7.6/10. I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it has for the most part decent songwriting, good performances, and good production value. I also think FJM writes pretty great lyrics reminiscent of a more lighthearted Mark Kozalek.

Its biggest problem is that it drags like shit through the middle of the album, which is a letdown considering its very good opening and closing few songs.

This is literally the only funny post ITT.

i agree with your post apart from the bit about Kozalek. Kozalek's form of writing is nothing like FJMs. if i had to compare FJM to anyone lyrically it'd be (i'm going to get hate for this) Bob Dylan

we're here to discuss an album, not post jokes you fucking moron

It's put together well enough, Tillman is good enough at what he does to not make anything offensively bad, but I think the entire premise and perspective he's offering is really tired and arrogant.

I don't mind the fact that he's talking about larger societal issues, I just don't think he's particularly good at it. The album is too general to act as any kind of a successful personal statement, and it's too individual to have any real universality to it.

Also the music itself is just lame and his most uninteresting work to date. Yes I understand the irony in using corny 70's piano ballads to deliver the content, but that doesn't make it good.

>No one ITT has articulated any reasons why they think it's bad.
Very boring album. Specially when Josh plays the piano. I never thought a person could be such a boring piano player. Most of the entertaining content is in the lyrics, and it ain't exactly clear whether they entertain you by actually saying interesting stuff, or just by being annoying. The shortest tracks are the best because they don't make you fall asleep. "Total Entertainment Forever" is, despite the stupid initial lines, actually one of the better singles released. There are some very nice brass arrangements that are pure fun to listen, and the track is barely 3 minutes long, which means it doesn't waste your time. "Smoochie" is also good, with its (glockenspiel?) intro arrangement and the charming hook "Soo-o-o-o-n" (only sung once, regretably). The true winner is, though, "Ballad of the Dying Man", a genuinely unpretentious song that's simply the best sung thing in Tillman's catalogue, or at least in what I've heard of it. That falsetto! The long tracks, regrettably, are almost entirely non-entities. The guy keeps singing without doing anything that could possibly catch you unprevented. Once a song exceeds a certain lenght the fun disappears. The title track is an example. "So I’m Growing Old on Magic Mountain" is another example. But the worst offender is easily the insufferable 13-minute "Leaving LA", which completely fails to feel any poignant at all, and ends up behaving more like a desfigurated "Ambulance Blues" that lacks any memorable musical features (those goddamn chords never fucking change). Besides, that fifth verse will make you cringe; don't say I didn't warn you. But there's even more crap: in "Two Wildly Different Perspectives" Tillman sings so absurdly slow so that you know what he's saying is important, while all the electronic (quite industrial) background noises and pecussion irritate the shit out of you.

I don't disagree with a lot of this, but I think my response to the album is just a lot less hyperbolic than yours. I agree that the longer songs toward the middle of the album, particularly "Leaving LA", really bring the whole album to a grinding halt. But I wouldn't classify the entire album as "very boring" or "annoying" or "crap" or any of the other adjectives you've used.

>and it ain't exactly clear whether they entertain you by actually saying interesting stuff, or just by being annoying.
Thats the point!

jk, i agree with you on the points about the long songs, however i really do like the title track, because he takes it somewhere, unlike leaving LA.

>But I wouldn't classify the entire album as "very boring" or "annoying" or "crap" or any of the other adjectives you've used.
good thing we don't all have to think alike right bud? :)

The entire album is him just wincing and sneering artistically. That's annoying, and him recognizing that's what he's doing doesn't make it any less annoying.

He's just not good enough of a musician or satirist to justify that.

How is Kozalek's writing "nothing like" FJMs? As I wrote in the original post, FJM comes off as a toned-down Kozalek in that at least some of the writing, particularly on "Leaving LA", carries a similar sort of stream-of-consciousness style.

That said, I don't disagree with the Bob Dylan comparison; frankly "Bedding Taylor Swift every night in the Oculus Rift" is very Dylan-esque and is in my opinion an instantly classic line.

Yes, although my point is to say that I think you're overreacting. The worst I could say about this album is that it is at times inoffensive or forgettable. I think you've gone a bit overboard with your evaluation of it.

>"Bedding Taylor Swift every night in the Oculus Rift" is very Dylan-esque and is in my opinion an instantly classic line.

post irony has gone too far

>nobody is articulating why they like it
>omg you went overboard
really makes my blood boil

I think "He's just not good enough of a musician or satirist to justify [wincing and sneering]" is probably one of the fairer assessments ITT.

I will admit that his attitude toward his supposed constant and consistent LSD use, for example, rubs me the wrong way. Almost as if he's trying to be subversive but is just coming off as trying too hard.

>really makes my blood boil

See what I'm saying? You're all about the hyperbole. If someone on Sup Forums is genuinely making your blood boil, however, you should do some personal reflection and perhaps seek help. None of this matters.

eh, i feel like kozalek's writing is more grounded than FJM. FJM uses a lot of metaphors and 'clever little quips', whereas Mark talks about shit that happened at Barnes and Nobel that day (in a good way). Maybe FJM does sort of adopt this style on Leaving LA though.

>None of this matters.
omg your subjective opinion on what matters!
counts for us ALL
wow omg

I was gonna comapre this album to Randy Newman, Elton John and Warren Zevon, but those artists played in quicker tempos and were more soulful. So, maybe he takes after Radiohead and Coldplay, that sort of bleached-white, post-Eno lounge music? Being this musically bland is an achievement.

...

i mean i wouldnt say that FJM lacks soul. its quite clear he believes in what he's singing about on this record.

this logic can be applied to most Sup Forumscore though

Sup Forumscore sucks i agree

applies to any lo-fi garage made indie like Salvia Palth and Car Seat Headrest

Hold on, where in that post is the argument that 1)its bad and 2) that its supposed to be.

The argument is hating on it for being pretentious is retarded.

Your stupid fucking meme reaction text doesnt apply everytime you get BTFO.

prog rock ain't dead

For me a huge reason is that not only does it possess all of the flaws articulated in this thread (overlong, bloated songs, boring/familiar/uninspired instrumentation, occasional pretension), but it's also not ORIGINAL at all. He uses these really basic arrangements and hookless and chorusless songs to draw attention to the lyrics, which are just not that special.

Like, have people really not heard/thought about these ideas before? Everything he says on this album is familiar to me, and so the fact that he's not even presenting it in an interesting way makes this album a total failure to me. Sure, the lyrics are grammatically correct, and it's "well produced" but it's a fucking big label release, of course it's well produced.

When the instrumentation is boring or uninspired at best, songs consistently drag, you have few if any hooks, and your lyricism is direct and prosaic, the content of your message has to be fucking bang on and new and interesting or insanely well articulated. And it's just not. I'd be shocked if most people hadn't considered these ideas either on their own or in sophomore high school english class. I just don't get what's actively good at all about this album.

Wait, I read Infinite Jest and liked it. Are you saying I'll like Pure Comedy too?

it's your low level iq

this. thank u user

No, unless you love quarter note piano chords more than anything else in the world. Thematically, FJM doesn't accomplish half as much half as well on PC as DFW does in Infinite Jest

>No no, our replies to him are supposed to be shitty.

y'all are meming this because it hurts the consensus but he's mostly right. Regardless of what you think about Pure Comedy (I personally dislike it overall) the style is triggering for Sup Forumstants, the arrogance, the emphasis on analysis of some sort, the political-hipstery perspective

The point isn't that FJM is pontificating to us or even preaching. He has said himself at many occasions that he doesn't think his viewpoint is ''special'' and that his audience doesn't ''get it'' as much as he does.

This argument is like saying ''Does Burt Bacharach think he loves harder than everybody else with all those love songs he writes?''

FJM has also on many occasions said he has many musical shortcomings and that alot of his production/aesthetic is only possible with the help of producers and collaborators. Even within his lyrics he admits this, for example on leaving LA he says:

So I never learned to play the lead guitar
I always more preferred the speaking parts
Besides there's always someone willing to
Fill up the spaces that I couldn't use

This kind of despair/hope filled music is just his wheelhouse. At no point did he pretend this was ''the ultimate truth'' it's literally his take on shit. Again he has admitted recently in an interview that he doesn't read that much.

I understand that accusations of ego and pretentiousness, however it's all noted by FJM himself.

I actually don't get how you guys can say this. I hear a lot about how this album is both "optimistic" (in response to criticism about its apparent pessimism) and that it's just about Josh's personal experience. I can see that on tracks like Leaving LA, but I don't get how Pure Comedy or Two Wildly Different Perspectives are just about aw shucks humble Josh Tillman. They are all about the nature of the world, and he does nothing to couch them at all in his own personal perspective. It is entirely the charity of the listener to ascribe those songs a delimiting self awareness or modesty, because they're nowhere in the actual lyrics. i love you honeybear was tolerable because father john misty was constantly reminding you that he was just some loser, and pure comedy is less tolerable because, musical reasons aside, he stops doing that. Where in these songs or total entertainment forever do you see him looking inward?

It's not an issue with an artist saying something sweeping about society, it's about an artist saying something about sweeping about society that's not only unoriginal, but poorly executed.

I'd almost agree with this, and I suppose this is where it comes down to opinion.

True, the song themes in it of themselves arent all that interesting. "We'll all be plugged into our VRs, man." and "Life is just a joke" and "We're doin the best we can here, God!" are fairly derivative themes.

For instance, I can see hearing "Total Entertainment Forever" and "Two Widely Different Perspectives" and thinking its pedantic shit.

But, on all the other tracks, where he expresses these ideas so genuinely and beautifully, I think it makes up for maybe the central idea being a little stale.

"Ballad of the Dying Man", "Leaving LA", "When the God of Love Returns", Growing OLd on Magic Mountain" are full of some stanzas that are pretty personal and unique.

Yeah but this is also something that kind of annoys me about FJM. like you can't deny that the way he presents his music lends itself to analysis and criticism and general seriousness more so than Burt Bacharach, and so it gets approached as such, the same way you'd analyze a Leonard Cohen song and a Don Henley song differently.

Anyway, it's just annoying that FJM leaves all of these little escape hatches for himself, not just in interviews where he says "oh i don't wanna seem like i'm passing off my opinion like absolute truth or judgment" despite making an album where it does seem to a lot of people like that, but also WITHIN SONGS like on Leaving LA where he has that whole section about how those "college dudes" are gonna bail on 12 minute songs with no choruses, already setting his critics up as fairweather, unserious music listeners. If you take the album seriously, oh well, he didn't actually mean it, he's just one man among billions and who cares what he thinks. And if you don't take the album seriously, oh, you just need poppy melodies and choruses, you probably couldn't handle it or didn't even listen.

It's like your friend who picks a bad character in Super Smash Bros. and when you win it doesn't count because their character is worse than yours and when you lose you must suck even more because their character is worse than yours. he gets to have it his way no matter how people approach it, and all those little escape routes that he has intentionally left to avoid some of the real criticisms of this album really rub me the wrong way.

I agree with you somewhat, that's probably my biggest problem with the album. However I don't think this lack of ''personal humanism'' that was on Honeybear is as lacking on PC as you make out.

The Ballad of The Dying man is obviously just him speaking about himself.

A Bigger Paper Bag, is about his shortcomings as a person/artist and ends with him pretty much proclaiming his love to Emma/whoever a la Honeybear

Smoochie is probably the most emotionally raw song since Honeybear and is openly about his relationship with Emma and how she looks after him.

Growing Old On Magic Mountain again is very openly about coming to terms with ageing and not being able to handle time passing.

I dunno I feel like this album has alot more ''cultural warrior'' stuff on there than is a little on the nose, but it's still filled with the same self loathing JT the other albums did.

>It's like your friend who picks a bad character in Super Smash Bros. and when you win it doesn't count because their character is worse than yours and when you lose you must suck even more because their character is worse than yours. he gets to have it his way no matter how people approach it, and all those little escape routes that he has intentionally left to avoid some of the real criticisms of this album really rub me the wrong way.
holy shit this
i can't stand people like that,
DUDE ITS LOW TIER LOL

Fair enough user. Granted, the two tracks you brought up (Different Perspectives and Total Entertainment) I think are more of outliers and are two of the tracks I like the least.

True, there are some parts where there is a bit of self indulgence, but I dont think its enough to tarnish the album as a whole.

Yeah, and I can almost agree with this too. It's so interesting, if you just read the lyrics to Leaving LA they're great, they're honest-to-god good poetry. But the problem is he's writing songs, not poetry, and when you go to listen to the song, it's just a slog. It's difficult to get through.

He doesn't have almost any songs on this album where the lyrics and the music are both working together to produce something good, except maybe Total Entertainment Forever. Look, you can like this album, I just really don't think there's that much that's good or original about it, or the parts that are he still shoots himself in the foot on.

Idk, maybe it's because he's from where I grew up and so I feel like I know a lot of people like him, but listening to this album feels like listening to your rich, above-average but not a genius friend tell you about all the eye opening stuff he's learned now that he's changed his major to Philosophy this semester, and I can't get past it.

I disagree. I think you're seeing Tillman as this one sided being who needs to be either entirely serious and scholarly in his writing or completely open and honest with his experiences.

If anything I think he has shown across his music that he is as much of a hypocrite as anybody else, which makes him all the more human.

Just because I might want to sit down with friends and discuss some pretentious movie/book/politics doesn't mean I don't also want to sometimes just flick on the TV or put Netflix on and watch any old shit.

Caviar is good but so are Hot Dogs. I don't think his self deprication is ''outs'' he's just a multi faceted person like everyone else.

This thread is probably the most genuine music discussion I've ever seen on Sup Forums.

(Sign of a good album, desu.)

>Smash Bros analogy
lol manchild

>spams falcon punch and raw knee all game

>finally hits one

"LOLOLOL get fucking owned i read the shit out of you"

scum of the earth

b-but user, wouldn't an album that negates criticisms be good?

nah quietus agrees with me
thequietus.com/articles/22171-father-john-misty-josh-tillman-pure-comedy-album-review
i'll take a professional opinion over yours

>Anti-x is just as bad as x
The album is shit, there's nothing wrong with cynical or tongue in cheek music but this is just such self-righteous headassery that it's unbearable.
An "ironic" piano ballad about how pop culture is stupid gets old after 30 seconds, I don't see how anyone in their right mind can sit through two hours of it.

>People react negatively to something, that proves it's right
Please go back to R*ddit

Okay, and that's great, but I don't think he presents that well at all. It's like, if I point out that his intellectual observations are puerile and trite and that we've all thought of these things by the time we were 16, then I'm accused of taking him too seriously. If I try to just have fun with the album and disregard the philosophy, I find that there are no real hooks or compelling arrangements and that I'm sitting through thirteen minute long songs where almost nothing happens. FJM is trying to have his cake and eat it too with this album, and it surprises me how eager people are to defend it.

Oh wow.
No offense but that is one of the most pathetic responses to a ''discussion'' I've ever heard.

I've worked in the ''industry'' and even have a degree in ''journalism'' (both pointless by the way), let me let you in on a little secret... The shit-heads that write that gash aren't ''above'' anybody here.... Yikes

Case in point

>i got the above opinion from a review site

hurts because itstrue

My dad works at Nintendo

idk if is trying to pretend to be me, but he isn't the guy you replied to, citing reviews is stupid unless you're having an argument about critical consensus.

>backtracking
Yikes

Everyone who has been criticizing this album as they have is completely missing the point. You may not like it but your criticisms are still juvenile. What he is saying is merely the surface of the concept. The album is very much a trip of being in Tillman's head so if you don't care for him and his personality then I suppose it makes sense why you would not like it. However, the "this has already been discussed to death" criticism is childish. Not every musical statement should be a grand revelation; meditations on yourself, your life, and the world around you are legitimate topics for lyrics. This is not a novel he has written. The album facet is just as important as the concept. Also, he has admitted to suffering from depression which I believe adds a lot to what this album really means overall. From the opening title track all the way to "In Twenty Years or So," as I said before, this album really is an interesting trip. I disagree with a lot of what Josh says on Pure Comedy but I highly enjoy the music and, regardless of the difference, even the lyrics and emotions conveyed on this album. Am I expected to find artistic merit in only those works whose political and social ideals are identical to my own? Count me out then. Fandango summed the album up pretty well in his review:

youtube.com/watch?v=nO89Wos0Hv0